John Flanagan - The Royal Ranger

She knotted Tug’s reins around his neck so they wouldn’t hang down to trip him, then swung up into Bumper’s saddle.

“Follow, Tug,” she ordered and the little grey tossed his head obediently. She touched Bumper with her heels and cantered slowly across the open ground to the road. She rode up onto the raised surface and looked to the south. There was no sign of the two men but she didn’t want to come upon them unexpectedly so she held Bumper down to a walk, moving along in their tracks.

They had been moving for twenty minutes when she caught sight of moonlight glinting on something in the long grass by the side of the road. She dismounted and walked down the camber to check. It was Will’s bow. The stray beam had caught the waxed surface of the wood or she never would have seen it. Her spirits fell. Ruhl and his men had obviously caught up with him here. Probably, as she had surmised earlier, he had exhausted his supply of arrows and tossed the bow to one side so that they wouldn’t have it. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands, sadly running her finger along the smooth surface of the wood. She looked around but there was no sign of his body and she began to feel a ray of hope.

Perhaps they had taken him prisoner. Perhaps he was still alive.

She ran back to the horses, cramming Will’s bow into the arrow case behind Tug’s saddle, and mounted Bumper. She unslung her own bow and made sure the flap in her cloak that covered her arrows was open. She didn’t care now if she caught up to the two kidnappers on the road ahead of her. In fact, she found she was hoping that she would.

She nudged Bumper forward and he responded instantly, striding out in a full gallop so that he fairly flew along the road, his hooves barely seeming to make contact with the hard-packed surface. Tug, with no rider to burden him, kept pace easily, a couple of metres behind and to the side.

Overhead, the moon beamed its light down on them, so that the road seemed like a pale ribbon running through the grass. The two little horses pounded on, striding in perfect unison so that they sounded like one horse running, not two.

Five minutes later, she crested a small hill and saw the two slavers ahead of them.

The hill had masked the drumming hoofbeats but now the men heard them and turned in panic to face her. They were two hundred metres away and she urged Bumper to greater speed, dropping the reins on his neck and guiding him with her knees, reaching behind her for an arrow.

The man on the right had a crossbow. He raised it, aiming at her. She waited a second or two, letting his aim steady, then nudged Bumper, urging him left, then a second later, right again.

The double shift of direction did the trick. The man panicked, overcorrected and jerked at the trigger lever too quickly as he tried to keep her in his sights. She heard the quarrel buzz past on the left like an angry hornet. Then she rose in her stirrups, drawing back the arrow. She touched Bumper lightly with her right knee and he crabbed a little to the right, as he had been trained, leaving her with a clear shot straight ahead.

At eighty metres, she released, waiting for the split second when Bumper’s four feet were all clear of the ground. The bow thrummed and she saw the arrow speed away to its mark. The crossbowman was straining to re-cock his weapon when the arrow struck him. He dropped the crossbow and staggered a few paces, before falling face down on the road.

His companion looked at him in horror. Then he began to run towards her, his arm drawing back the throwing spear that he carried.

Calmly, without haste, she reloaded and shot again. Her bow was lighter than Will’s and didn’t have the same staggering hitting power. But the man dropped the spear and stopped in his tracks, staring in horror at the arrow in his side. He clutched the wound and fell to his knees, doubled over. He was sobbing in pain as Maddie swept past him at full gallop, leaving him behind in a swirl of dust.

She didn’t draw rein until she was three hundred metres from the clifftops at Hawkshead Bay. Then she eased the horses down to a trot, edging off the road so their hoofbeats were muffled by the thick grass. At a hundred metres’ distance, she swung down from the saddle while Bumper was still moving. Signalling to the two horses to stand fast, she crouched low and ran to the edge of the cliff, dropping to hands and knees in the last few metres, creeping forward, fearful of what she might see.

Mill was tied to a thick stake, set firmly in the coarse sand of the beach.

The stake had been one of the supports for the mess tent, but Ruhl had his men uproot it, then replant it deep in the sand, inland from the tents. Will’s hands had been dragged behind the stake and tied securely there. His feet had been tied together at the ankles, then secured to the bottom of the pole. Finally, a third rope had been looped round his throat and the pole, keeping him standing upright.

Around his feet, and reaching as high as his knees, the slavers had placed a vast stack of brushwood. It was already tinder dry, but Ruhl had soaked it in oil to make sure it would burn instantly, and fiercely. The throat-closing smell of the oil reached Will’s nostrils, making him want to cough. He resisted the urge, not wishing to give Ruhl any satisfaction.

He had been tied here for several hours and his hands and feet were numb. Again and again, Will had tried to force the ropes apart, trying to stretch the fibres, or find some give in the knots themselves. But it was a futile effort. He tried once again, but he couldn’t feel his hands any more. If the ropes weren’t loosened soon and the circulation restored to his hands and feet, he thought, he’d lose fingers and toes, or even the hands themselves.

Then he shrugged. Losing fingers was going to be the least of his worries.

Further down the beach, about twenty metres away, Ruhl and his remaining men were seated round the camp fire, passing a flagon of Iberian brandy from hand to hand. As Will watched, the Stealer took a long swig, then placed the flagon to one side.

He rose, a little unsteadily, then stooped and took a flaming brand from the fire.

Weaving slightly, Ruhl made his way up the beach to where Will stood, trapped against the stake, unable to move. Will felt his stomach clench. This would be the third time Ruhl carried out the charade of pretending to light the fire around him.

On the previous two occasions, he had taunted Will, placing the flaming torch a few centimetres from the stacked firewood, then pulling it back again at the last minute. Then he would repeat the action, so that Will never knew when his last moments were about to come.

Would this be the time he would go ahead with his threat?

Now Ruhl stood before his captive, unsteady on his feet, his face flushed with the effect of the alcohol. He leaned forward, peering at the bearded face before him, trying to see some sign of fear, some plea for mercy.

“Well, Treaty, is this the time? Are you about to go to meet your lovely wife once more? What do you say?”

He dipped the flaming end of the brand close to the piled oil-soaked wood. Will stared straight ahead, resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to watch as the flames wavered, inches away from the stacked branches.

“How about it, Treaty? Are you going to ask me for mercy? If you do, I might give you an easy end. Just a quick sword thrust and you won’t have to worry about these flames.”

The burning brand waved in front of Will’s face, so close that he could feel its heat against his eyes, feel his beard and eyebrows beginning to singe.

“Nothing to say? You’ll make plenty of noise in a minute, when I drop this torch in the fire… whoops!”